Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: UK

  • GeoGuessr 2 – Rugeley (Rugeley Town Railway Station)

    GeoGuessr 2 – Rugeley (Rugeley Town Railway Station)

    We had arrived into Rugeley Town railway station earlier on in the day from Birmingham, but I didn’t get much chance to look at it properly. There isn’t much to see, but this is one of the railway stations which has been reinvigorated over recent years and it’s used by over 100,000 passengers a year.

    The railway station in this area originally opened in June 1870 and was operated by the London and North Western Railway. It was shut down during the Beeching cuts and so the railway station looked like it would be permanently lost, although the track remained in place. The current new station, located a little further down the track away from Rugeley, was built in 1997 as part of the re-opening process of what became known as the Chase Line.

  • GeoGuessr 2 – Rugeley (The Vine Inn)

    GeoGuessr 2 – Rugeley (The Vine Inn)

    Having visited the Rusty Barrel, there was time to visit the town’s other entry into the Good Beer Guide.

    I hadn’t been overly impressed at the choice of beers at the Rusty Barrel, but this pub didn’t disappoint at all. They had a vanilla porter and a pecan porter which were brewed in-house, and I settled on having the former, but the pub kindly offered a sample of the latter as well so I didn’t miss out. The vanilla porter was marvellous, lots of flavour, an element of richness and very drinkable.

    We had just eaten about a kilogram of chips each, so the food options weren’t for us at that particular moment, but there were some interesting options. Service at the pub was excellent, a really engaging staff member who added positively to our experience with her friendliness.

    We had to leave after around half an hour to get our train, but there was an element of sadness that we couldn’t stay longer here, a very well deserved entrant into the Good Beer Guide. Indeed, usually it’s Nathan faffing about and making us nearly miss flights, but on this occasion, it was him harassing me out of the door. So, onwards into the cold black evening we went.

  • GeoGuessr 2 – Rugeley (Bus Stop Gate)

    GeoGuessr 2 – Rugeley (Bus Stop Gate)

    There are many things in the world that irritate Nathan, some which can be predicted, others which can’t be. And, as he likes the operation of buses, this little effort irritated him, which were two bus stops on opposite sides of the road. He suggested, quite rightly as it turned out, that this is bad practice as it means that two buses can be parked up causing a traffic obstacle.

    He’ll probably be writing a fiercely worded letter to the local council, crafted in his own inimitable passive aggressive style.

  • GeoGuessr 2 – Rugeley (The Jolly Fryer)

    GeoGuessr 2 – Rugeley (The Jolly Fryer)

    Food started to become an important consideration after visiting our first pub in Rugeley, but fortunately, there was a chip shop nearby. Nathan was despatched to purchase a small sausage and small chips each, but he came back with a bag which had a similar weight to a small child.

    The portion size of the chips was a little ridiculous, but always best to have too many than not enough. The sausage was fine, the chips were hot and there were lots of the little chips, my personal favourite. Service in the chip shop was pleasant, it all looked efficient and there was a bit of a festive feel as well. But, the portion size at least meant that we didn’t need any more food for the rest of the day.

  • GeoGuessr 2 – Rugeley (Rusty Barrel)

    GeoGuessr 2 – Rugeley (Rusty Barrel)

    I’m a big advocate of micro-pubs and I think they can in the future be a key driver in the increase in pub numbers in the UK, which for the first time in a decade actually increased last year. This pub is located within a row of shops, or what would be called a strip mall in the US, where it wouldn’t be unusual to see a bar, but it’s much rarer in the UK.

    All of the micro-pubs which I’ve been in over the last couple of years have a similar theme to them, which is a modern style of serving, blackboards or screens giving clear information about the beers, no seating at the bar, credit cards preferred and engaging staff.

    Firstly, with regards to the bar staff, that was great, a friendly acknowledgement when at the bar, engaging service and a farewell as we left the pub, so I felt we received a genuine welcome.

    Other than that, I found the set-up slightly disappointing. The pub has seating at the bar which makes it difficult to see what the beer options are, with no obvious blackboard to be able to see the choices before arriving at the bar. Whilst writing this, I’ve found that the pub does actually put the options on their web-site, which is a marvellous idea and one I wish other pubs would do.

    There were also no dark beer options at all, which is unusual and especially so at this time of year, but there were three choices from the Backyard Brewhouse, a local brewery from Walsall. I’ve since discovered that this brewery makes some fantastic dark beers, so it’s even more disappointing that the choices offered were a bit narrow. There are also no cans and bottles in fridges to cater for more tastes, something else which is unusual in a micro-pub set-up.

    I aborted my plans to have a pint when I saw the options, cutting to half a pint of Bad Santa from the Backyard Brewhouse. This was adequate, tasted well-kept, was at the appropriate temperature, but it didn’t feel like it was 6.8% and didn’t have any strong flavours or even subtle tastes that I could discern.

    The pub also doesn’t take cards, a situation which is now rare, although there’s a cash machine nearby.

    Some of the beers which the pub has previously sold.

    There may have been a beer blackboard that I didn’t see, but all I could see was the gin list and the rum list.

    I like the rustic look, although for me, the interior design looked more like a garage with furniture rather than a pub which had a quirky feel. And to me, this also felt more like a small pub, rather than an on-trend micro-pub.

    Having written all that, it’s a marvellous enterprise to have set up, they’ve got in the Good Beer Guide despite only being open since late 2016. The welcome seemed authentic and it seemed to have a community feel to it, somewhere welcoming to all. Their reviews are also uniformly excellent, so they clearly know what they’re doing.

  • London – Tower of London (1961 Guide Book)

    London – Tower of London (1961 Guide Book)

    Tower Of London Guide Book

    This (it’s in .pdf format) is apparently out of copyright and it’s the guide book published by the Ministry of Works in 1961. Quite a lot has changed over the last sixty years and I hadn’t realised that the Crown Jewels at the time were in Wakefield Tower, which must have been quite a challenge in crowd management, although not so much in centuries gone by when they were in the Martin Tower.

    Also, the Tower of London used to be free of charge on Saturdays and Bank Holidays (although there was a small charge to see the Crown Jewels), it’s now much more expensive and I’m not sure that they ever have any free admission days. The description of the rooms in the various buildings is now so different that I’ve been unable to even ascertain which room is which.

  • London – Tower of London (Then and Now)

    London – Tower of London (Then and Now)

    The Tower of London has an interesting concept to mark the contribution of those who had fought in the First World War, which was to merge photos from the time with a recent and symbolic image. The above image is the original and the idea is to take a modern photo at the same place, but with a different person, although someone connected with the original image.

    This is the modified image, with a boy scout taking the place of the boy in the original photo, but he’s standing in the same location.

    I was sufficiently intrigued to go and take my own photo at the same site. This really brings to life the past when museums do this, a reminder that the very ground that visitors are standing on has so much history from across so many generations. Not least, because of the contribution that these men and boys gave, there’s a feeling of ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’.

  • London – Science Museum (MONIAC)

    London – Science Museum (MONIAC)

    If there was any doubt that I really need to get out more, it’s my excitement at this, one of the MONIAC (Monetary National Income Analogue Computer) machines. I’ve seen photos of this numerous times before back when studying economics, and it’s a pre-computer method of measuring how the UK national economy functioned by changing various inputs. It was designed by William Phillips, the same man for which the Phillips curve is named (a link I hadn’t realised until I was enlightened by Wikipedia).

    Wikipedia also tells me that there were around twelve to fourteen machines built, most of which appear to have survived and are dotted around the world. The one at the Science Museum is located in the mathematics sections and was donated to them by the LSE in 1995.

    Water would flow through the machine and it was possible to work out how to try to get an equilibrium in the economy, with these models apparently being surprisingly successful.

  • London – Science Museum (Door Case from 56 Lincoln’s Inn Fields)

    London – Science Museum (Door Case from 56 Lincoln’s Inn Fields)

    There seemed to be a fair few exhibits at the Science Museum which had a rather tenuous link to, well, science. This door case seems to be something better suited to the Museum of London, but it’s here as the museum say that it’s a mathematical shape following the rules of proportion.

    The door case dates from the eighteenth century and it was saved before the building was demolished in 1912, to be replaced with a larger and more substantial property. The London County Council, who were the ground landlord, noted in the early twentieth century:

    “In the case of No. 56, no part of the original building is in existence. The only external feature of interest is an 18th-century door case, constructed in wood (illustrated in Plate 72). The designer has effectively used Roman Ionic columns with entablatures, to support a bold pediment, below which has been placed a semi-circular fanlight to give light to the passage. The interior is uninteresting.”

    They also published a partial list of residents of the building:

    In 1700 and 1703 Sir Thos. Millington.
    In 1708 and 1723 John Richardson.
    Before 1730 to 1731. Geo. Baker.
    1732–1739. Dr. Thos. Rundle.
    1740–1755. “W. Murray.”
    1756–1758. “Chas. Pratt.”
    1759–1761. John Rayner.
    1762–1769. Thos. Kinnaston.
    1770–1784. Sir Walter Rawlinson.
    1785–1788. S. Ewer.
    1789–1793. — Heyman.
    1794–1802. Mrs. Lee.
    1803– Jas. White.

    I’m assuming that the Thomas Millington was the physician, notable for being one of those who dissected the body of King William III in 1702. Millington died in 1703, but I have no idea whether he was responsible for the addition of the door case to the property, which I suspect he might have rented (the property, not the door case). Anyway, science or not, it’s an interesting reminder of the London which is no longer there.

  • London – Science Museum (Merman)

    London – Science Museum (Merman)

    This gorgeous little number at the Science Museum is a Merman, which is a cross between a fish, a bird and a monkey. It dates from around the nineteenth century, although its origins are unclear, it might be Dutch or Japanese. A merman is a male mermaid, so the variety of items that come into this definition are quite broad.

    It’s not an uninteresting exercise to look back on old newspapers, where stories were still circulating from supposedly credible sources that mermans did exist. Reported throughout the national media in May 1739 was this story:

    “In Vigo, in Spain, some fishermen lately took on that coast a sort of monster, or merman, five foot and a half from its foot to its head, which is like that of a goat. It has a long beard and mustachoes, a black skin, somewhat hairy, a very long neck, short arms and hands longer and bigger than they ought to be in proportion to the rest of the body, long fingers like those of a man, with nails likes claws, very long toes joined like the feet of a duck and the heel furnished with fins.”

    Sounds a lovely thing to find….